


Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

by notamericanmade



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Book - Freeform, Death, M/M, Suicide, cyanide - Freeform, graveyard, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-03 01:32:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4081402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notamericanmade/pseuds/notamericanmade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here Rests<br/>George Ryan Ross III<br/>30 August 1986 - 23 March 2008<br/>Wrote the world to write himself out of it. </p><p>AU Ryden following Ryan's suicide</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

**Author's Note:**

> Product of gross procrastination. Sorry for the sad.

It’s uncharacteristically cold for August. There’s been a strong wind coming in off the Western sea for most of the month and now that it’s nearing the beginning of September, no one’s really holding out any hope the sun will return.

The gravel path down the cemetery is too loud, Brendon thinks, crunching methodically under his feet—footfalls too heavy to match the feeling of his heart in his chest. It’s not been long enough, Spencer told him that, he hasn’t had time to heal yet, but Brendon was never one to take serious advice; why should he start now?

He never liked the engraving on Ryan’s tombstone, it was too much like him. He wrote it, so that’s why it sounds like him, but it sounds too sad, too much like he didn’t want to die and he was confined to do so; no choices.

But he had choices. He didn’t have to end it so he could die a martyr, he could’ve stuck it out, let Brendon try.

_Here rests_

_George Ryan Ross III_

_August 30 1986 – March 23 2008_

_Wrote the world to write himself out of it._

The flowers are too bright against the dusty brown and marled grey. The deep red seems too much like blood to be appropriate. They’re symbolic of love, Brendon checked. Spencer said it was a nice gesture, Brendon still thinks it’s wrong.

Good people shouldn’t take their own lives. Scratch that: nobody should take their own life. They don’t realise how precious they are until they’re gone. Ryan never saw the unimaginable beauty, the insatiable curiosity that hid within him. He never saw it and didn’t understand when people did, so took himself out of the equation like that would stop it.

He never made much sense, Ryan, especially not to Brendon, but he never made less sense than when he decided to kill himself.

The note had been all fancy metaphors and long, drawling sentences about the serenity and charm of death, but all Brendon had seen was ‘I have no reason to go on anymore’. That had made him angry more than anything else, because Ryan had had so much reason to go on. Ryan had had Spencer and music and words and love and Brendon. He’d had reason and he’d thrown it away so he could eternalise himself in the minds of those who knew him. And those who didn’t.

A sharp wind buffets Brendon’s coat open. A few of the petals on the roses blow away.

The last conversation they’d had with each other hadn’t been special. They’d been talking about guitars for fucks sake. In some way, it’s grossly fitting. In most ways, Brendon regrets not saying something about how he wanted to hold Ryan close forever and never let him go. But he hadn’t done anything. He’d listened to Ryan rant for 20 minutes instead about the merits of a Gibson over a Fender, just like the one of the first conversations they’d ever had, aged 17.

***

“Just, I don’t understand how you can be so loyal to one guitar!” Brendon had argued. “I have to keep it casual, have a few on the go at the same time.” He’d winked with that and Ryan had rolled his eyes fondly.

“See, that’s where your problem lies. You need to get to know a guitar. Feel it and understand it and predict its next tone. Once you build up a relationship, then you can judge your guitar against another one.” Ryan had tucked his hair behind his ear and stroked the neck of the old, polished Gibson acoustic he was holding.

“You’re such a romantic, Ross. Shame it’s only with guitars.”

“You wish you were my guitar, Urie.”

Brendon had held his tongue, then, not saying that, yes, he would give anything to have Ryan hold him and stroke him like that fucking guitar.

***

He doesn’t really want to speak. He’s been thinking for the last five months of all the things he would say to Ryan were he still alive, but now he’s actually _here_ … it’s harder to say it. Anything he says right now will feel inadequate and not. Not _enough_. He wants to talk to Ryan, fuck knows he wants it more than anything else in the world at this point, but he wants to talk to _Ryan_ Ryan, not… Not graveyard!Ryan.

His Ryan, alive Ryan,  would have called him a wuss at this stage, then hugged him round his waist and said it was okay to be afraid, you just have to know you can overcome it. And wow thinking about that, Brendon _misses_.

It’s not even that him and Ryan were resplendently in love, it’s that they could have been. That’s where they were headed, had Ryan not... yeah.

They were going to move in together. Ryan had given Brendon a key to his apartment a month before… um, The Incident.

***

“Here,” He’d said, holding the key between his thumb and forefinger, arms length away from his body and only a few inches from Brendon’s eye. Brendon had been watching Planet Earth on the TV in Ryan’s apartment and had startled a little when the shiny metal pointy thing was brandished too close to his optic apparatus.

“What is it?” he’s answered, slightly redudantly. He knew what it _was_ , he meant ‘What does it _mean_?’

“It’s, er, it’s a key,” Ryan stuttered back, “A key to here.”

Brendon hadn’t looked up from the TV screen, sporting the view that if this meant enough to Ryan, he wouldn’t have chosen to do it during an episode of Planet Earth. “If you’re pointing at your heart, Ross, I’m leaving you for someone less sappy.”

Ryan had grunted in annoyance and come round the front of the couch so he was directly blocking Brendon’s view of the screen. Brendon played his part and protested, but gave way quickly when Ryan shot him an angry glare.

“It’s a key to my apartment. I want you to move in with me.”He stared into Brendon’s eyes and added, “Please,” as more of an afterthought than anything else.

Brendon turned the TV off and stood up to look Ryan in the eyes. He’d watched the panic seep into Ryan’s entire face, the nervous-inner-lip-chewing a massive giveaway. Then, he’d smiled his irresistible sideways-tilted smirk and plucked the key from Ryan’s hand, he’d pecked Ryan swiftly on the lips and watched, again, as the panic left Ryan’s body.

“Awesome. We’re gonna be roomies, Ross!” He’d enthused, prancing round the back of the couch and giggling. “We can have midnight feasts, and movie marathons, and make pancakes, and have loads and loads of sex,”

At the time, Brendon thought Ryan’s smile had broken through his cover of monotonous subduement, but upon reflection, Brendon thinks maybe it was the other way round.

***

Another gust of wind blows the flowers slightly to the right. It’s so forceful it whistles in Brendon’s ears, and for a moment he thinks he can hear Ryan whistling along to some tune off of the radio. It’s a fleeting moment, however; all the best ones are. 

He should’ve brought a note or something. Written down all he wanted to say so he doesn’t have to say it out loud. It’s not like there’s anyone actually in the graveyard, so it’s not a self-confidence issue, it’s just. Just that it’s not the _same_ , and Brendon knows it. He doesn’t want to talk to Ryan’s grave because he’ll start thinking about how he’s so close and yet so far away. Ryan’s physical body will be six feet beneath him, but his mental, his emotional, his _spiritual_ presence is long gone. And that’s what’s so difficult about it.

***

When Ryan asked him if he wanted to try weed, he’d thought the boy had been joking. It was only when he’d produced a bag of the stuff Brendon had taken the situation seriously.

“Where the hell did you even get that?” He’d whisper-shouted, like someone would hear him and call the police on them.

Ryan had rolled his eyes and tutted. “Chill out, Brendon, it’s not like I went to some dive bar and gave out blowjobs to all the tattoed dealers for a fix. Jon gave it me.”

“You wouldn’t, right?” Brendon asked dubiously.

“Wouldn’t what?” Ryan returned, eyes concentrated on the marijuana in front of him, rather than Brendon’s concerned expression.,

“Go to some dive bar and suck dudes dicks to get your hands on drugs?” Brendon had supplied needily.

Ryan had looked up at that, curiosity and slight awe in his eyes. “Of course I wouldn’t, B, I’m not some junkie. I also don’t give blowjobs to people I don’t like, and I only like you, so.”

They only shared one blunt, in the end. Brendon said he didn’t like the taste, and Ryan had gone into some weird trance where he said he couldn’t see his feet. It was odd and confusing and they never did it again.

***

Brendon stuffs his hands in his pockets and sighs. He should go home, if he’s not going to do anything or say anything, he should go home. But since when was he able to just turn and walk away, especially when Ryan was involved.

He feels like he should kneel down, or something. He feels like this is some rare, religious experience and he needs to make the most of it. He feels bad that Ryan never made it to 22, never got to see the exciting side of life, only the side with work and bullies and rules and regulations that confined him to spill his words in secret, to not let himself be heard.

The earth is cold and hard under his kneecaps, even through the denim of his jeans. He sits back on his heels and brushes at his nose even though he’s not crying. Yet.

His voice feels foreign in his throat, it’s like he’s breaking some precious silence that’s there as a warning that people are sleeping peacefully and you have to be quiet.

“Hi, um, hey, Ry, it’s me.” He looks up and down the row of tombstones and then down at the earth in front of Ryan’s. “I guess I came to say… to say Happy Birthday. You never liked it when we threw you parties. You didn’t understand why we had to celebrate getting older, since it meant getting closer to… yeah.” Brendon rubs his shaking hands up and down his thighs. “But, I thought, since this was the first, um, birthday since… I thought I should come down. I wanted to come down and be with you.”

“I just. I don’t understand, still, why you did it. I want to, God knows I want to, but I can’t get in that mindframe. Everyone says it gets easier, you learn to accept. But – I don’t want to accept it, I want you to come back. I miss. You. Us, I guess. Who you were with me, because I liked me better with you. People say you can’t love so young, but if you’d given us more time. Given yourself more time, we could have been. Like, forever, or whatever. Don’t you think?”

If he’s waiting for an answer, one doesn’t come. Predictable, but still painfully unexpected.

He takes a deep breath and blows it out between his teeth. “I was. Angry, at first. Crippling sad, yes, but angry as well. You wrote all those things about how you were ‘Swimming against the current of your own mortality’ and ‘Leaking through cracks in the boardwalk’ and I didn’t – I didn’t know what any of that meant, it was so typically you and I thought I would understand in time, but there’s been time and I still don’t understand, so please… please do one last thing for me and tell me how to get over this? Get over you. I don’t want to but I know in the end it’ll be better. I can’t live my life in love with a ghost. That’s not… not fair.” Brendon scrubs the shorter hair just above the nape of his neck. He lets his touch rest there for a second, and he runs the tips of his fingers, callouses disappearing after a long period of guitar-neglect, over the top notch of his spine.

***

“I like you.” Ryan whispered, voice holding a quality of childish confidentiality.

“I like you, too, Ryan Ross.” Brendon had said back, talking through hushed giggles.

Ryan shook his head and frowned. “That’s, that’s not what I mean,” he protested, voice barely audible. Brendon didn’t frown, instead he put his hands together like he was praying and put them under his head, like a cushion.

“What do you mean then, Ryan Ross.” Brendon asked, voice light and intrigued.

“I mean,” Ryan shuffled his body closer to Brendon’s. “I like you as more than just a friend.”

“Okay,” They’d looked into each others faces for a moment, considering what the next best move would be. Ryan lapsed first, wiggling across the floor in some stupendously idiotic looking fish-flop which ended him up nose-to-nose with Brendon, not-quite-touching.

“Are you gonna like,” Brendon started, then wet his lips, “Kiss me, or something?”

The corner of Ryan’s mouth had quirked up little then fallen down, his face turned serious.

“Maybe.”

***

Brendon feels like he should replace the flowers; rearrange them or something. He feels too useless, too judged. He feels oddly like the new kid in a new school after his parents have carted him to some strange state to start afresh. He feels like he needs to impress the group of kids he’ll be most likely to stay friends with for the year, and this is his only shot.

“Ryan, I,” He sniffles, more from the unprecidented cold than his sadness, “I wish you would’ve stayed. I wish you could’ve seen what I saw in you and stayed with me. But… since you didn’t, I have to… I don’t want to, but I have to. I have to come to terms with what happened.”

The tombstone doesn’t respond with the pointed, snarky comment Brendon thinks Ryan would have come up with.

“Spencer says. Spencer says that I can’t blame myself. I know, on some level, I know he’s right, but. I can’t help but feel responsible. I had one shot to make you see how important you were, and I blew it. I spent 4 years with you, and I couldn’t make you stay. The irony is, all your life you wanted to be gone, and now that you really are gone, I can’t seem to get rid of you.” Brendon thinks Ryan would’ve laughed at that. He’s not sure whether he has the right meaning of the word ‘irony’ but, he’s trying his best, and Ryan would appreciate the sentiment.

He folds his arms over his chest and breathes once, twice, three times before continuing. “We’re nearly finished. With the book, I mean. We’ve nearly put the whole thing together. It’s pretty complicated, seeing as you never fucking kept all your notes for it in any form of order… but we’re getting there. I think you’d like it, maybe you’d be proud of it. All your words, together and telling the world a story. I know you said you didn’t want to publish it, but it’s really good, Ry. It’s really good and it’d be selfish to keep it to ourselves. You have to share art, you taught me that.”

***

“Brendon, you have such a nice voice.” Ryan observed one hazy afternoon in the middle of June.

“Your point being?” Brendon retorted, plucking an unsuspecting daisy from the ground to add to his chain.

“You should share it with the world. A gift shouldn’t be wasted by being hidden.” He shifted his sunglasses on their nose-perch and sighed.

“Well, Ross, I’ll make a deal with you,” Brendon offered, not glancing up from his daisy chain.

“What’s that then?”

“If you write a song for me, I’ll sing it for you.” Ryan raised his eyebrow at that. “Fair trade, I think. After all, gifts shouldn’t be wasted by being hidden.” Brendon had cackled and Ryan had closed his eyes against everything.

“All right, deal. I’ll write you a song, and you can sing it for me.”

The song he’d written had been about clouds and the weather and Brendon didn’t understand it then, not sure if he understands it now. But it had been Ryan’s song and Brendon had sung it at Ryan’s 18th birthday party that year. That was, coincidentally, also the night they had sex for the first time.

***

“We don’t know what to call it, that’s all.” Brendon says, now, picking at the grass verging around the carefully dug grave. “Spencer says it should be something from the note, but… I don’t know. I think it should be something from the song I found. I found it before you… but I didn’t have the opportunity to ask you about it. It’s all half-lines and lilting phrases, and I thought it was really beautiful. I wrote the rest of it. I don’t know if it’s any good, but at least now I can say we wrote something together, at least. I hope you’re not mad at me for doing that. I couldn’t resist.”

He knows that Ryan has no way of telling him whether or not he’s mad Brendon found his unfinished work and desecrated it, but it feels better to ask for forgiveness than to live forever in shameful guilt.

“I should. I should probably go. I told Spencer I wouldn’t be too long. He was worried I might drown in my grief and never return. Or something.” Brendon pushes up on his heels and reaches out to touch the cold, grey tombstone. “Bye, Ryan.”

***

It’s not until the next January that Brendon visits the graveyard again. It’s bleak and misty, yet he feels loosened, which is more feeling than he’s had in nearly a year.

Ryan’s grave looks largely unvisited, apart from the bright, white roses that have been placed against the stone. A fleeting moment of confusion passes through Brendon, before his rational brain decides it must be Spencer, or someone like that. Why wouldn’t someone else visit?

The book in his hand feels heavier, somehow, now it’s got to this. Even though it’s not Ryan’s physical body looking at him, it feels as if it is. The judgement will, inevitably, be the same.

“Hey,” He whispers, “I brought you something. It’s the book.” He kneels on the hard floor and looks at the book. “I called it, um. I named it after the song? The one I told you about that I finished for you. It’s um. Yeah. I know. It’s not as good as it would’ve been had you written it yourself, but it’s not like that was much of an option. So, I hope wherever you are you can… read it, or whatever.”

The sample book came with a dust cover, and Brendon didn’t want to take that off, seeing as it had the blurb in it and everything. The picture on the front isn’t bad, actually, it’s a picture Jon took of Ryan and Brendon standing in the rain in Chicago.

Though it had started off as a light drizzle, which Brendon insisted on dancing it, it quickly progressed to a full on downpour, soaking Brendon’s shirt through in a matter of seconds. Ryan had held a jacket over his head and run into the deluge to retrieve Brendon, but his plan had failed spectacularly when Brendon had grabbed Ryan’s hand and smiled, full and wide, pushing the jacket down over Ryan’s shoulders instead of covering his head.

***

“Brendon, come inside, you’ll freeze out here.”  Ryan pleaded, tugging on Brendon’s arm while simultaneously trying to keep the jacket over his head.

“But Ryan, look at the rain,” He’d said it with such awe in his voice, Ryan had been forced to relax his grip on Brendon’s bicep.

“But you’re only in a t-shirt and old jeans. Please, come inside.”

“But it never rained in Vegas. Not like this, anyway. I want to stay and… feel it, you know?”

Ryan smiled, easy and smooth, “You like the rain, huh?”

Brendon nodded enthusiastically and spread his arms wide, tilting his head up into the oncoming splatters.

Ryan watched Brendon with warm eyes and abandoned his jacket, letting it fall to the ground with a wet thud. The noise caught Brendon’s attention, and he’d frowned before grinning maniacally. Ryan had grabbed Brendon’s wrist and twisted him so they were standing face-to-face.

“If I’d have known you liked the rain, I would’ve taken you to New Orleans.”

Brendon frowned, apparently not having gotten the joke. Ryan tried to keep smiling, but it was hard when Brendon was looking at him like that.

“You know,” he started, “Because that’s, like, the rainiest city in the USA? No? Never mind.” He looked down at the puddling floor. It took only a second before Brendon put his hand on the side of Ryan’s neck, fingers splayed across the back of his skull and thumb coming up just before his ear. He pushed back in order to tilt Ryan’s face so they were eye-to-eye.

“You’re amazing,” He’d said simply.

It was that moment Jon had tested his new camera setting through the doorway onto the street.

***

The book sells amazingly well.

So well, in fact, that within two days it’s advertised on every billboard for sixteen blocks around Brendon’s apartment. He counted.

He’s glad that Ryan’s getting the recognition he deserved in life, but he hates having the constant reminder of what he used to have. Every day. For sixteen consecutive blocks.

Every billboard is too large and emblazoned with the same few words:

_Northern Downpour_

_Written by Ryan Ross, Edited by DecayDance Publishers_

_Stop stalling, it’s time to make a name for yourself._

_“A thrilling journey through the tortured, hungry mind of an insomniac struggling through a dismal world with no visible end” – TIME_

Brendon doesn’t understand why the TIME quote has to be so long. He’d have preferred something shorter, but that was what DecayDance had said would work, and Brendon doesn’t know anything about publishing or advertisement or whatever.

There’s some other writing on the posters, as well. All the ratings given by people of note.

All of them are five stars.

Due to extenuating circumstances, by which they mean the author’s dead, Brendon and Pete (DecayDance’s CEO) do all the press for the novel, which leaves Brendon stressed and sad.

He hates reading Ryan’s words over and over again to people. He wanted this as a kind of closure; provide Ryan with a legacy so he could move on. Unfortunately, that’s not what has happened.

Brendon finds himself back at Ryan’s grave just a month after his last visit. “Hey, Ry, just came to get away from it all, I guess. The book came out, and people love it. Everyone’s a little confused about, like, you, but that’s probably because you’re the most confusing person I’ve ever met. Not to say I don’t… um. Still, um, love. You.” Brendon clears his throat and sits down properly, crossing his legs underneath him.

“I wish you could see it, Ry. It’s amazing. You would have liked it, I think. You always said you didn’t like attention, but you would’ve liked this.” Brendon sighs and reaches into his bag to extract the book, the first edition he received in the mail before everything went public. “I brought this again, I wanted to read you the… um, the blurb and the dedication. It’s a bit confusing on, like, the cover and everything, just because we had to write your name, and then my name really  small somewhere… anyway.” He opens the book, hardback because Pete said he needed a durable copy, and flattens down the inner flap of the dust cover, the one with the blurb on it.

“Okay, so it’s, um: Northern Downpour, that’s the name, written from the notes of Mr. George Ryan Ross III, edited and produced by DecayDance Publishers, Co-Written by Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith. I didn’t want our names to be in it, by the way, but Pete.. Pete’s the CEO of DecayDance, he said that it was some legal thing. Anyway: ‘A Moon who fell in love with the Sun under the green umbrella trees of summer. People who must shed skin on stage and pray for love in lapdances paid with naivety. Beginning when the poor son of a humble chimney sweep falls to a cheap crowd, taking days for pageants in nameless towns around chairless tables. A journey defined by the reinvention of the four letter word. Stay, join us in the land of Odd, and watch as we become mad as rabbits.’

“Is that good? I mean, I can’t really change it now since it’s been published and mass produced and whatever, but… I want you to like it. I hope you do. But, um, the dedication is on the next page. I hope it’s okay, because, like, it’s the one we found in your notebook. I know you never let us look in those damned notebooks, but… well, you aren’t here to tell me to fuck off out of it, huh?” Brendon laughs at that, broken and scratchy, but still there. It’s just that Ryan used to tell him all the time to ‘fuck off out of it’, it’s such a specific memory and it pings through him with a stinging clarity.

“Um, the dedication… I know it’s kind of selfish because my name’s on it now, but, like, I like it. So, um: To My Dear, I threw a line out to sea, and I caught you like a dream. You’ll always have me.” Brendon reads it slowly, like every time, relishing the words and waiting to feel that familiar lightning jolt of unexplainable warmth.

Except when it comes it’s not the same.  

***

It happened very much like the first time Ryan told Brendon he liked him. Except this time, Brendon knew exactly what he meant.

They were sitting on the patio, curled together in the warm expanse of Brendon’s pink blanket. They were watching the fireworks decorate the sky like glitter, celebrating the new year.

Well, Brendon watched the fireworks, and Ryan watched Brendon watching the fireworks. It was the way the colour would illuminate Brendon’s face in this surreally ethereal manner, and it would also reflect in Brendon’s wide, brown eyes, like his eyes were windows but with that edge that’s also a mirror.

Ryan wound his arm tighter around Brendon’s waist, and smiled when the only reaction this warranted was Brendon leaning slightly closer, eyes still fixed on the technicolour canvas above them.

Ryan leaned in closer to Brendon’s face and rested his forehead against the boy’s skull just above his ear.

“I’m in love with you.” He’d whispered, soft and yet not worried. Brendon squeezed Ryan’s arm very hard for a second and then turned his face so they were looking at each other.

“Well that’s good, because I’m in love with you.” Brendon smiled and pulled Ryan closer to rest their foreheads together.

“Are you sure?” Ryan asked, worry burrowing its way into his face.

“Of course I’m sure,” Brendon retorted in a teasing voice. “Why, are you not sure?”

“No, I’m sure, I…” Ryan hesitated then smiled, “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t just saying it.”

Brendon rolled his eyes and leaned forward, catching Ryan’s lips at a soft angle, not pushing too far.

Ryan pulled away first, “You’re missing the fireworks,” he commented.

“You give me all the fireworks I need.” Brendon replied. Ryan had wanted to scoff, but he was too preoccupied making out with his boyfriend to manage it.

***

Spencer comes with him on the anniversary.

Brendon’s been feeling pretty numb ever since his last visit, when he didn’t feel that customary bodily reaction at reading Ryan’s words.

Spencer told him it was fine, that he has just read it so many times. Brendon’s worried it’s something different. He knows he wants to get over Ryan, and thereby stop being in love with him, but he doesn’t want to stop _loving_ him. He knows it’s almost completely illogical, because, when it came to Ryan, those two things were sort of mutually inclusive. Apart from Spencer and Jon, obviously.

They reach the grave at round noon and Brendon immediately kneels down, hands clasped conservatively in his lap and eyes trained on the floor.

Spencer remains standing, observing.

“Bren, you look like you’re praying,” he says, “Are you praying?”

Spencer watches as Brendon sighs and rubs his thighs with his hands. “No, I can’t pray. It feels like I’m cheating. I gave up my religion because I didn’t believe in it, it’s not right to only believe in it when it suits me, when I’m benefitting.”

“That’s a bit of a twisted way of looking at religion, B. I’m pretty sure it’s all-inclusive. No matter the situation.”

Brendon doesn’t answer, so Spencer kneels beside him instead. They brought more flowers: roses. Ryan liked roses, ever since he was smaller.

“Do you… do you want to say anything?” Spencer asks, a waver only minutely perceptible in his speech. He doesn’t want to upset Brendon any more than is strictly necessary. Yes, this is killing him, Ryan is his best friend. Was. Was his best friend. But Brendon’s more prone to emotional trauma, and he does love Ryan, in an entirely different way to how Spencer loves him.

“I don’t know.” Brendon moans, his spine curls and his head touches his knees. Spencer places a hand encouragingly on his shoulder blade.

“It’s okay, Brendon, you don’t have to say anything.” He consoles his friend, trying to make it seem better. He knows it’s never going to be _good_ , I mean… their friend is dead, nothing at this point can ever really seem _good_ , but it can be _better_.

“Yes, I do! He’s my… he was my boyfriend, Spencer. What does it say about me when he’s been gone a year and I have nothing to say to him?”

“You’ve visited before, though,” Spencer reasons, “It’s not like you’ve turned up a year later and still have nothing to say. Anniversaries are hard, Brendon, you of all people should know.”

“I just…” Brendon stops and wraps his arms around his middle, “Can you give me a minute? Alone?” Spencer nods and gets up. There’s a bench close enough that he can see if Brendon breaks down or what have you.

Once alone, Brendon inhales and exhales slowly, cautiously almost.

“I know it’s stupid,” he begins, watching Ryan’s headstone intently, “I know I should be able to talk to you, but it’s still so hard. All I want is for you to look at me like you used to, and laugh at me like you used to, and smile that stupid smile like you used to, and then hold me and tell me you’re not going anywhere. Because I believed you, Ryan, whenever we would say we were all each other needed, I believed you. I trusted that you loved me enough to never leave and then…

“Someone asked me out. The other day, someone asked me out. They were cute, too. You would’ve hated them. You’d have said ‘They’re too nouveau riche, too classicly unclassy’. They gave me their number, but I haven’t decided whether I’m going to call them or not. Spencer says it’s okay. To move on, I mean. I don’t know. I still… I still love you, Ryan. Despite however much I want to _not_ , it’s so, so hard. The hardest part is that I want to not be in love with you, but I also don’t want to stop loving you. It’s… I’m really confused right now, though, so if you have the option wherever you are to help out a poor, wandering soul, could you do me a favour and help me? Please?”

***

“Brendon, I need your help,” Ryan whined, pulling helplessly on the knot he’d managed to create.

Brendon wandered over and smirked, he wondered how Ryan had actually made it to age 21 when he obviously needed so much aid to function.

“How did this even happen?” Brendon asked, flummoxed.

Ryan huffed, “I don’t know. I did _exactly_ what Yahoo told me to, and it all went to Hell.” He pulled ineffectually on the tangled ends of the bowtie and Brendon swatted his hands away.

“First off,” he said, nimbly loosening the chokehold the material had on Ryan’s throat, “I thought I told you never to trust what you read on Yahoo?” Ryan had rolled his eyes and fidgeted. “Stay still. And secondly, it’s really not that hard to tie a bowtie. You probably could have winged it.” He ran a hand over the shoulder of Ryan’s jacket and then looked up into his eyes and smiled. The bowtie was perfectly tied.

“Whatever,” Ryan had mumbled grumpily. “Thanks, I guess.” Brendon had smiled despite Ryan’s tone, he knew well enough to not take it seriously.

“You’re welcome, now come on or we’ll be late.”

“Urgh, who wants to go to some dumb commemoration anyway?” Ryan complained, but followed Brendon subserviently regardless.

“We do? Because it’s Spencer and he’s graduating early and we’re immensely proud of him. Now stop being so self-centered and get your pert little ass in that car right now.” Brendon made what he thought was a menacing face, but Ryan smiled.

“You think my ass is pert?”

***

Brendon talks on and off for another fifteen minutes before he feels a warm hand clasping his shoulder.

“You okay, buddy?” Spencer asks meekly. He’s been waiting patiently, not wanting to disrupt, but Brendon’s starting to curl in on himself more, and the pauses between what he says are getting longer and more frequent.

Brendon shrugs in response to Spencer’s question, then pushes himself off the ground and brushes the dirt off his knees.

“I’m fine. I’ll leave you two alone for a minute, though.” Spencer nods understandingly and Brendon moves off towards the bench Spencer has just vacated.

He doesn’t listen in on Spencer’s conversation with Ryan, which seems a lot more animated than Brendon’s chat. He didn’t like to listen to their conversations when Ryan was… let alone…

Spencer wraps up his visit pretty quickly, not saying to Brendon that he’s just going to come back later or tomorrow in order to continue talking. Brendon doesn’t need the guilt.

They spend the rest of the day at Spencer’s house, eating cereal and watching terrible Rom-Coms on the 24 hour ‘Girls’ network.

***

The graveyard is bathed in a wonderful amber glow as sunlight streams through the curtain of leaves turning lazily from their summerwear into their autumn coats.

It’s August 30th.

Brendon isn’t here.

He went through a period of coming almost every day for a month back in May, but he hasn’t visited since then.

The red roses he put there are rotting into the ground in front of Ryan’s headstone. Next to them are Spencer’s white roses which he replaces every fortnight. Spencer still visits, whenever he can, really.

Noon turns to teatime, which promptly turns to early evening. It’s 6pm when Spencer arrives.

“Ryan! Happy 23rd, buddy!” The exclamation itself seems jovial, but the tone with which it is delivered is sombre and forced. “I, uh, I brought some new flowers, they’re pink because I looked it up and they’re supposed to mean, like, perfect happiness and admiration and grace and, yeah, I thought that was appropriate.” Spencer pauses and silence fills the graveyard once more. He reaches into his jacket to pull out small, wrapped box.

“I… um… I brought a present. I mean, technically, it’s not a present because, like, it was already yours before this, but. It’s that, er, rose brooch? You know the one your, um, dad sold and then  Brendon bought back from the Pawn Shop? The one that was, like, your great-grandmother’s on your mother’s side. I know you loved it, and we were cleaning out your room a month or so ago, and I found it, and we knew we had to give it back to you.”

Spencer chews the flesh on the inside of his bottom lip and fidgets on the spot. “I’m sorry Brendon’s not here. I asked him if he wanted to come, but, well, he’s been doing okay recently. He went through a… like, this big _thing_ in May, and he got really depressed and wouldn’t eat or sleep much or see anyone, and he spent all his time either in your room or here, so. But then he just seemed to… snap out of it. So, late June we cleared out your room and then early July he started, um… well, I would say I’d let him tell you, but I don’t know when he’ll next be here, so I’ll just say: he started seeing someone. He cleaned himself up and he seems to be, like, getting better.

“I mean, there are times when he’ll hear something on the radio or see something somewhere that reminds him of you and he’ll, like, glaze over for a minute, but generally…” Spencer stops and leans forward to press the bridge of his nose against the edge of the tombstone. “We miss you, Ry. So much. But we know we’ve got to find a way to either get over it or deal with it in a healthy manner. I’ve been going to these meetings, you’d hate them, it’s like AA but for people who are suffering from loss, particularly a close friend or relative. It’s really helped me. It’s allowed me to see that I can deal with your… departure… in a level, reasonable, and mature way. Of course, I will always want you to come back. I will always want you to not have made the decision that you made… but I can’t live being mad at you. My life is worth more to me than that.”

The sun is dipping low behind the horizon, the landscape within view littered with twisted trees and ugly architecture.

“My birthday’s in two days. But, you already know that. You missed my 21st, Ryan, you missed it. We used to talk about what we were gonna do when we both turned 21, and you only lived long enough to see your own birthday, not mine. I didn’t think I would ever be in a situation where I wouldn’t be with you on my birthday and yet.” Spencer sighs. “I should probably go soon.”

***

“So, now we’re both 18 and over, we can totally go to England and get shit-faced.” Ryan said, lounging in Spencer’s living room comfortably.

“Well, you’ve been 18 for a year, so technically you could’ve done that on your own.” Spencer retorted, checking the contents of his school bag one last time before deciding everything was, in fact, in there.

“Meh,” Ryan grumbled, “But what’s the fun in doing something without your best friend.”

Spencer rolled his eyes but smiled. “Sure, your awesomely cool friend who’s still in High School. What a rad dude.”

“Hey,” Ryan protested, “I think you _are_ a rad dude, so shut the fuck up and start saving for a trip to England.” Spencer rolled his eyes and carried on rummaging in his bag, keeping half an eye on the TV that was turned down real low.

“So, what are we gonna do when we both turn 21, huh?” Spencer asked, flicking his eyes between the screen and Ryan’s sprawling body.

“Ooh, I hadn’t thought about that yet!” Ryan enthused.

“We could go to a bar?” Spencer suggested.

“Boring,”

“Casino?”

“Loud,”

“Strip club?”

“Cheap,”

“Well where do you wanna go, Ryan?”

“LA. We could go to LA for a weekend and drink tequila and make out with strangers on a beach.” Spencer shot his friend a glare and Ryan waggled his eyebrows.

“You know you have a boyfriend?”

“I know. But Brendon wouldn’t mind me making out with a stranger on a beach if it’s in the name of getting you drunk for your 21st!”

“I’m pretty sure he would mind,” Spencer argued, smiling despite himself. Ryan had rolled onto his front and giggled.

“Yeah, he probably would mind.” Then Ryan had sighed and whenever Spencer looked at him out of the corner of his eye, he was frowning miserably.

***

The graveyard Ryan is buried in isn’t in Vegas. Technically. It’s just outside of Vegas. A small cemetary called Chief Tecopa about an hour outside of Summerlin. It’s not a nice area, there are still casinos and carparks everywhere, but Ryan wrote in his will that he wanted to be buried in the lot he’d bought in Chief Tecopa cemetary.

In life, Ryan thought about death, and in death, he drained the life of everyone else. If anyone knew any better they’d think of it as his last passing ironic jab at his friends.

No one visits for a while. Spencer comes occassionally to replace the roses, but he never says anything, just places them against the headstone, nods, and leaves.

Brendon doesn’t visit.

Christmas comes and passes, so does New Years, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Brendon’s birthday, 4th of July, and right back around to Ryan’s birthday.

Brendon still hasn’t visited.

That is, until October 14th that year. Ryan would be 24, Spencer 23, and Brendon turning 24 in 6 months.

He arrives slowly, quietly, but not solemnly. No, it’s more… careful.

He kneels down, like he did just after. He tightens and loosens his grip on the bouquet of flowers in his hands and smiles.

“Hey, Ry, I’m – it’s been a while. It’s been busy, I guess, and I started getting better and everyone was worried I would go crazy if I kept coming out here all the time to see you. But then… something’s happened, it’s not bad, but, I needed to talk to you, so.” Brendon breathes steadily for about half a minute. “The book’s done really well, by the way. They’re calling it a new classic. A breakthrough piece and whatever, so, I’m glad you’re getting the recognition for your work that you always deserved.” He’s dancing around the topic, delaying because, in truth, he’s afraid to say what he’s going to say.

“Spencer must’ve told you I started seeing someone. About a year ago, actually. Maybe a little over that. His name’s Shane. He’s real artsy, you know? Likes photography and stuff like that. You’d have looked down your nose at him, but he’s an amazing guy. I wanted to… I told him about you, he says you sound like a cool dude, but since he never met you he doesn’t understand how I’m still hung up on you. He loves me, you know. Says it all the time. Looks at me like… like he doesn’t know what he’d do without me. I feel the same. He won’t abandon me. And, at this point, that’s kind of a deal breaker. Especially…” Brendon trails off and there’s silence in the graveyard once more.

“He asked me to marry him. That’s legal now, did you know? In Vermont, and a bunch of other states, it’s legal. So we’d go there and.. maybe move someplace else. I told him… I told him I needed time to sort some stuff out. Stuff being you. He said I could take all the time I needed, no pressure. That’s one of the things I love about him, he doesn’t push if it makes me uncomfortable. But, Ryan, I need to get closure, I need – you’d think with you being dead and all, that’d be all the closure I could need, but, I need to tell you I don’t love you and mean it. And, I think I’m at a place where I can say it. It’s been, what, two years? Two and a half? And I’m not in love with you anymore. I still love you, obviously, I mean, I always will. You never gave me the chance to stop. You left before I was done loving you, so…

“I’ve been thinking more and more about the night you died. How you were so calm. How you looked me in the eye and told me you loved me and you’d always be with me, no matter what. I asked to stay and you said no, go home, I’m fine. I believed you and you killed yourself. I won’t ever forgive you for that, but I’ve forgiven myself and so I’m moving on.” Brendon lays the roses on the earth in front of Ryan’s gravestone, the grass is lush and green after two years of growth.

“They’re yellow. It means friendship and joy. I checked on the internet. I – thank you, for an amazing experience, Ryan, I’m glad we had the time we did, but now I’m getting on with my life. I’ll always miss you, and I’ll always love you, but… we can’t dwell on the past forever. Time to stop stalling, huh?”

“Babe? You ready?” A guy says; Shane.

Brendon runs his hand down and across the engraving on the tombstone before nodding and getting to his feet. “Yeah, yeah I’m ready.”

They walk off together, hand in hand.

***

Ryan’s hand is shaking so hard he’s not sure if his writing is going to be legible. He’s not crying, not yet anyway.

_To My Dear,_

_We all must live with the mistakes we make, and we all must live with the regrets from our lives: things we did, things we neglected to do. Every man must carry the burden of his imperfections, and for some that burden is harder to carry than for others. My life has been imperfection after imperfection, and I can no longer bear that burden. My back is breaking from the strain of staggering onwards, and my ghosts have set their hearts on haunting me forever and my nights are never silent._

_I wore a mask of happiness to hide the mess of my real insincerity. I was swept by a burning tide, swimming against the currents of my own mortality, screaming silently as waves broke over my head and no one saw me drown. I want to leave this world with those I love knowing it was not their faults, it was never their faults. This has always been an inevitability, I’ve always known one day it would end like this. You can have everything in the world and still feel like you have nothing at all. Sadness is blind and unbiased. We feel the way we feel not because of how much surrounds us, but because of what. I was surrounded by the knowledge I was never going to be enough._

_I’ve written this note so many times I almost know it off by heart, I know exactly what I want to say and yet, as I see my unfamiliar scrawl blemishing this page, I feel like I’m writing alien words for the first time, unsure and uncertain. But I’ve not been more sure of something in my entire life. I know this is best for me, for everyone around me. I know it will be painful for a while, but I am confident you know how to move on, know how to cure yourselves of my poison._

_A daydream will spill from my corked and bottled head, break free of my wooden neck, as I find myself leaking through cracks in the boardwalk. I have lived in my few years more than I could have in 100 and you helped me to see that._

_To Jon, you are the coolest guy I’ve ever met, and without your wise words I would not be half as smart about the world as I am now. Live your life how you want, never let anyone hold you back from achieving your goal._

_To Spencer, we’ve known each other for so long, you’re like my brother. You’ll be disappointed in me, I know, but you of all people must see this was the right option. Take care of Brendon for me, and take care of yourself._

_Brendon, I do love you, please never doubt that. You are everything I could have imagined having, and I hope I was enough for you, even though I doubt I was. You deserve so much better than me, and by taking myself out of your life, I trust I can help you to see that. You are the love of my life and I will always be with you._

_You all helped to replace the family that abandoned me, and I am forever grateful of that._

_I couldn’t continue in this world, and I couldn’t let it kill me. I need my free will, I need the upper hand but I shall go gentle into that good night, death is a release, a fix._

_See you in the next life._

_Yours,_

_Ryan Ross._

He signed under his name and attached his will and deliberately hid the key to the locked drawer containing his private notebooks in a pencil pot where he knew Brendon would find it.

He’d worked hard to find a cyanide pill, but some dodgy dealers in the sketchier parts of the Las Vegas slums had proved very helpful.

He cried, but convinced himself it wasn’t from sadness. Yes, he loved his friends, but he couldn’t stand to let them down anymore, he wouldn’t be the pitied friend for another day. He had a choice about his mortality, possibly the only choice he had control over anymore. It was quick and virtually painless and then he headed straight towards the white light.

It wasn’t even Brendon who found the body, it was his friend Alex who was only there on accident.

***

The yellow roses rotted, but the pink ones are replaced every two weeks.

Mostly, it’s silent in the graveyard as Ryan lies in peace, slowly fading into the backs of his friend’s memories as they move on with their lives.

Just like he’d said would happen. 


End file.
